


shadows fade into the light (when i am by your side)

by moonsandstar_s



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonsandstar_s/pseuds/moonsandstar_s





	shadows fade into the light (when i am by your side)

PART I. 

 

_post 2x15. carmilla’s POV._

_° ° °_

_shadows fill an empty heart_  
as love is fading  
from all the things that we are  
but are not saying  
can we see beyond the stars  
and make it to the dawn? 

_change the colors of the sky._  
and open up to  
the ways you made me feel alive,  
the ways I loved you  
for all the things that never died,  
to make it through the night,  
love will find you. 

_- **what about now, chris daughtry**_

• • •

You can scarcely believe it, really.

It’s been only a few hours; if anything, the passage of time has only increased the ache somewhere in your chest. Years have felt like minutes in your lifetime, but these hours have felt more torturous than centuries. For the first time, you thought you had the answers, and yet you were wrong, and the truth has escaped your grasp, leaving you blindly groping in the dark.

You’ve stopped crying. Vampires don’t cry, Maman told you, but that was a lie. It’s either you’ve exhausted your supply of tears or you’re no longer absolutely miserable; feeling the hollowness echoing inside of you, you’re inclined to think the latter.

 _This was bound to happen, darling,_ Mattie’s words bounce around in your head. She’d tried to contain her mirthful glee when you fled Laura’s cries and told her, seeking solace. But she threw your sorrow right back in your face, finding entirely too much joy in it.

“I told you, sis, that a human never could have really understood who you are,” she’d crooned. Perhaps she’s right, perhaps not, but it doesn’t change the cold truth.

Sooner or later, something would have breached the gap that has been widening between Laura and you. Today, that abyss became uncrossable, the misunderstandings between you insurmountable.

The sky is streaked with burnished, rosy-gold clouds. You can glimpse stars glinting in the sky to the north, violet-navy sky spreading over the mountains. You wince; the stars are tied with many memories, most prominently the ones of Laura.

 _She thinks I’m a monster?_ You think bitterly. A dark voice has been snarling, rearing its ugly head within you for hours. _I could show her a real monster… she’s never seen blood on her hands, death painting the sky scarlet…_

The idea fades as swiftly as it comes. Even if you’ve left her, you told her that you loved her, and a confession as momentous as that is not easily overlooked. Killing is not the answer here.

Killing is what drove you here in the first place.

You run a tongue over your fangs, feel the slick ivory of them, debate pulling them out, wondering when you let your emotions grip you this strongly. Mattie has beaten the idea in your head that feelings should not influence you, but that lesson never really stuck. Somewhere along the line, Laura exerted too much control; now you are free, but is freedom supposed to taste this sour?

“We don’t fall in love with humans,” Mattie’s admonishing snarl echoes in your head. She’d chided you, reprimanded you, been furious with you. “How on earth could you be so god-awful foolish?”

“I don’t know,” you’d echoed, voice still ragged. Your flesh was still torn from punching a wall- the wall shattered- and Mattie had seen the injury.

“I’m not going to say more,” she had whispered. The whisper had sounded less like a condolence and more like the hiss of a snake. “Just- trust you know that you made the right decision in leaving that naïve child behind, Carmilla.”

“I know,” you had told her, but you don’t. You don’t know. Being in the dark has never been this terrifying.

Your eyes narrow resolutely as you see a figure take shape in the distance, striding towards you with purpose in their step. Bracing yourself for Mattie, maybe Laura, maybe Xena- a wisp of bitterness crackles through you- you sit up, but shock jars you as you see none other than the bio major.

They look not angry, just resigned, their ruffled hair a flame in the gathering dusk. Anger bubbles in your chest before you force it back. Whatever pleading they’ve deigned to do, you’re not going to apologize.

It was right to leave Laura. Only right… Wasn’t it?

“What do you want?” You snap.

“To talk.”

“If Laura sent you here,” you tell them, “go back.”

They blink. “No. She didn’t. I’m here of my own accord, but you’d know I was lying if I said I wasn’t here because of her.”

“I’m not foolish. I figured as much.”

“I know only put up with us because of Laura-” They flinch slightly- “Or, you did, rather. And I’m probably not in your best books with the whole J.P. thing- sorry about that, by the way- but Laura’s my friend, and I don’t like seeing her this way.”

You maintain stony silence.

“Uh, yeah,” they run a hand through their hair, looking distinctly awkward and out of their element, “I know Laura has her issues and all, but I’ve only ever seen her this broken up once. I came out here rather than deal with Perry stress-baking and Laura drowning herself in ice cream and horrible music. But she only cried like this once, and that was when she thought you were dead.”

And then the hollowness inside of you is filling with rage: hot, horrible, wrathful anger.

With that anger is the despairing weight of Laura’s expectations; of when you saved her life, the disillusionment was only just beginning.

You both have been in the dark for months, and maybe it all was a lie, and your heart splinters.

“Run back to my Mother’s apartment,” you snarl. “You only came because of your own guilt, nothing more, that we all saw the cracks. And ignored them until it became too much. You think that I am a hero? That the world is not black and white as she’s dispositioned to believe? That everything’s changed? You came here to seek solace for her; you can tell her if she sees a monster, then I can be a monster.”

You turn, don’t glimpse their taken aback expression. The echo of their footsteps sounds in your ears long after they’ve left, and as night falls, you feel so terribly wrong; a wreck of conflicting emotions and biting, savage sorrow.

But even as long as you want to avoid the aching sadness gnawing at your core, the night is young, and your feet drive you back to the apartment.

The light is shadowy. You curl your lip at the overpowering reek of dark chocolate, and swallow despite yourself as you catch the scent, the tang of salty tears.

Your pace is brisk but you halt abruptly as you enter the room; eyes narrow slightly at the sight of Danny and Laura. You read their expressions easily: a flash of guilt and tension on the ginger’s, a resigned, half-surprised, half-miserable countanence for Laura.

“I’m just gonna go…” Danny excuses herself before quickly bolting out of the room. You clench your jaw, the simmering anger still whispering in your bones as Laura pushes herself upright from the mahogany ottoman.

_She wants a monster? She wants a callous, disregarding vampire? She wants a real monster? I can show her that. I can be that…_

“You came back,” she says finally, not looking directly at you. “I… wasn’t sure if you were going to come back.”

“Of course I’m back.” She looks startled at the abrasive edge to your voice. “This is my Mother’s apartment, and I stole it fair and square.”

She averts her eyes. “That’s… not what I meant.”

“Oh,” you practically growl, “I know what you meant. But if you and your knight in shining gym shorts over there need some space, you can find another room.”

“Okay. One, there is nothing going on with Danny and me. Two, all of my broadcasting equipment is here, so if you don’t want to watch me talk to my friends who actually care about this school and want to help, then you can find another room.”

“Dream on, creampuff-” You almost backtrack, then, and you can see her eyes harden at the avoidance of her name. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, neither am I,” she retorts.

“Fine with me,” you say, even though it’s not, it’s the farthest thing from fine: and it won’t be for a long, long time, not with the way Laura’s looking at you now: tawny fire of hurt anger, not tenderness and even love, even though she damn well said she didn’t love you. You feel numb again at that, and she stares, and you say, “There’s plenty of space here.”

She narrows her eyes, two twin suns burning with a searing look, spins and with shaking hands, shuts off the blinking webcam. She spins and stalks from the room.

Even though you try to block out the sound, you can hear her muffled sobs as she flees up the stairs, can hear the way she shakes, can hear her break down in the room you once shared, stars you once named together.

You can hear your own heart break, again and again, and it is only when you are sure that you are alone that you allow yourself to cry.


End file.
